Master Thesis Defense

By Anders Tørring Kolding and Jonas Tarp Jørgensen.

Title: Changes in enjoyment of physical activity, self-efficacy and heart rate in children, before, during and after participation in the PULSE exhibition at Experimentarium.

Background/Abstract: There is a broad consensus in science that individuals who are active during early childhood will tend to be more active throughout their adult lives (see for example Bandura, 1997, p. 176; Telama et al, 2014). But how can we succeed in making children more active? Through activities that motivate and support families with children aged 6-12, the PULSE project at the Experimentarium wants to help children become more active.

The overall aim of this Master Thesis project, is to investigate how/if a visit to the PULSE exhibit changes children’s relationship to physical activity.

We know from the literature that physical activity, self-efficacy and enjoyment seem to be positively correlated with the amount of physical activity (both time spent in physical activity and the relative amount of vigorous exercise in the physical activity) (see for example Lewis et al., 2016; Hu et al., 2016). We want to investigate the potential changes in heart rate, self-efficacy and enjoyment of physical activity respectively, as markers of children’s physical activity level and engagement.

Families with a total of 53 children have been interviewed, observed and tracked with heart rate monitors when they visited the eight activities at the PULSE exhibit.

The preliminary results indicate that:

● Children are in fact active during their visit at the exhibition.

● Self-efficacy increases for some activities and decreases for other.

● Overall enjoyment of physical activity is not changed.

These and other results will be analyzed to see what factors are present or absent when the PULSE project either succeeded or failed in their goals with the exhibition.